


all my yesterdays

by tidesong



Category: The Poppy War - R. F. Kuang
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, F/M, error 404 no winners here, im so sorry kitay, sex as a coping mechanism, tbg chapter 34 divergence, tbg spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:00:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28117332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tidesong/pseuds/tidesong
Summary: She could’ve broken the cycle. She found that she didn’t want to.—Rin and the aftermath.
Relationships: Chen Kitay & Fang Runin, Fang Runin/Yin Nezha
Comments: 8
Kudos: 53





	all my yesterdays

**Author's Note:**

> i have a lot of mixed feelings about this fic. but i wanted to explore the trajectory of rin’s arc if chapter 34 went differently.  
> 

In the days after, Rin will remember this: 

She stood at the edge of the plane of creation facing back to front, eye to eye with Kitay. She could see every emotion on his face and hear every thought that passed through his mind. His desperation washed over her in waves, one last-ditch effort to stop her from doing what she’d always planned to do. 

“I love you,” she said to Kitay, “more than you’ll ever know.” Her voice was barely louder than a whisper but it cut through the silence like nothing else. She touched his forehead with hers, leaning in close for the final blow. “But I can kill anything.”

Rin cupped his face with her hand, smoothing the faintest traces of tear tracks from his eyes. She’d memorized this sight, the way he looked at her, like she was his last hope, like he needed her to do the right thing.

She closed her eyes instead. 

_Break him_ , she told the Phoenix. 

He screamed and she heard it in her mind. It was wondrous. It was wretched. She knew that this was the sound that would haunt her for the rest of her days and nights. She’d broken her first, last promise. She’d broken the only one that mattered. 

Nothing good ever came from being loved by her. They had all burned to ash in the end.

Rin heard the half-mad howl of Altan’s laugh at the forefront of her mind. She heard the echo of a thousand cries from the earth, all the ghosts of everyone who’d gone before. But above it all, she heard the crackle of a funeral pyre, a roar of a god unchained, vengeance and destruction brought right to her door.

She could’ve broken the cycle. She found that she didn’t want to. 

Rin set fire to the sky and watched the world bleed red. 

When it was all over, she made her way across the sands of Dead Island, ruin and wreckage littered at her feet. An empire was crumbling down in the water before her but all she could feel was a certain kind of numbness, some kind of detachment, nothing left of the fiery rage that had plagued her minutes before. She barely registered the way smoke had blotted out the sun, tinting everything in the distance in shades of gray. 

Movement caught her eye and she saw Nezha a few feet away, cradling Kitay’s unconscious body to his chest. Rin started to walk towards him when his head snapped up and met her gaze. 

She saw awe and fear and horror mixed in equal parts in those brown eyes. She’d seen that look once before; it’s the one he’d given her during their first and only match in the ring at Sinegard when she’d nearly killed him.

Rin stopped in the sand right in front of him, feet touching his. She remembers reaching her hand out, palm up, fingers outstretched. 

She waited for him to take it.

* * *

They rule from Arlong.

If she was honest, she’d never thought that she would be back in the city so soon, especially after the multiple attempts on her life. She’d wanted to go back to the South, but Kitay had convinced her that Arlong was the better choice for a stronghold, a better choice in the long run if things took a turn for the worse again.

Nezha walks back into the palace like he’s never left, sweeping away debris left and right. Rin orders what was left of her army to keep the peace in the rest of the city before she makes rounds with Kitay. 

It gets easier after the first week.

Nezha and Kitay fall into a comfortable routine of drafting legislation and settling grievances in the great hall while Rin enforced whatever needed to be done. Nezha could rule the republic, for all she cared. She’d only showed up to meetings to push for more scientific research and technological advancements. Kitay wanted to recreate replicas of Hesperian arquebuses and dirigibles, something Nezha had wholeheartedly agreed with. 

They never got the shipment of grain from the Hesperians, but that didn’t matter when they discovered a large shipment stowed away in a cellar underneath a Hesperian bunker. It was enough to keep dissent down in Arlong, so that was enough for her. Life goes on and Rin leads patrols, trains new soldiers, and burns away all the rot that had accumulated in the city in their absence.

It’s progress she thought she’d never see.

After a month, she’s content, but never complacent. Rin still sleeps with her back to a wall, boards up her windows at night, and keeps a knife under her pillow.

She walks through the empty halls of the palace, trailing her fingers along walls that stood tall and proud for centuries.

This time, she wouldn’t be a footnote. She’ll be the entire goddamn book.

Mai’rinnen Tearza was wrong about one thing, at least: this victory didn’t taste like ashes in her mouth.

* * *

She has trouble sleeping. 

So much, in fact, that she’d started playing a game with herself every night before she went to bed. Kitay had looked at her like she’d finally lost her mind the first time she’d tossed the Imperial silver coin. It landed on heads, so she’d smiled to herself and clapped her hands, completely forgetting that he was also in the room.

“What,” asked Kitay, “is going on?”

“I’m playing a game of ‘Will I Sleep Tonight’,” she answered, tucking the coin away on her nightstand. “It landed on heads, so that means that I will be sleeping.”

Kitay looked like he was about to reason with her before he thought better of it, shrugging his shoulders before wishing her a good night, no doubt tired of her shenanigans.

Rin tosses the coin this time, crossing her fingers for heads.

It lands on tails and Rin deflates, feeling whatever mild euphoria she’d built up die down. She lies back down on her bed and begins to count the ninety-eight ceiling tiles again.

She closes her eyes just for a moment but when she opens them again, she’s in the spirit plane. Oh, no. Her heart drops. She whirls around and Altan is there, sitting at a table and serving himself tea like he’d never left this corner of her mind.

“Rin.” Altan smiles widely, all teeth. She doesn’t smile back.

“Get out,” she snarls. “We’re done. It’s over.”

Altan laughs. He always seems to be laughing these days. The sound comes to her as a sharp, jagged echo. “Rin, Rin, Rin. It’s not over; it’s never going to be over.” He gives her a once over, eyes lingering on her chest where his handprint still burns true. “You’re smarter than that.”

Rin knows that as fact. At best, she’d delayed whatever retribution Hesperia had planned by maybe a decade if history proved correct. Without a doubt, she knew that they would be better prepared next time, armed with their knowledge of their experiments with Nezha. She could only hope Nikan would be better prepared under Nezha and Kitay’s leadership. She wasn’t going to admit any of this to Altan, though.

“I did what you couldn't,” she says instead. “I burned it all down.”

Atlan waves her comment away, unbothered at the deflection. “Oh, don't be so modest Rin,” he says, fixing that fiery gaze on her. “Not with me.”

He gets up in one fluid motion, moving closer to her until he’s right up in her personal space, just close enough so when she breathes in all she can smell is fire and ash and smoke.

“You don’t have to pretend that you didn’t enjoy every last second of it.”

She hates the way he is right and oh, what does that say about _her_?

* * *

The first time she fucks Nezha, it’s impersonal. An excuse, an afterthought.

It was one of those nights again, so she’d gotten up and started to walk. She felt like searching for something; of what, she didn’t know. The list went on these days.

Rin calls it a coincidence when she ends up in front of his room. Uninvited, but not unwelcome judging from the way he doesn’t say anything when she walks in like she had every right to, even at this ungodly hour. 

Maybe he knew. Maybe he’d been waiting for something, too. She’s not going to put it past him.

“You should really lock your doors,” she says in greeting. 

He’s still seated at his desk in the corner despite the time. Some part of her isn’t all too surprised at that fact. The lamp casts shadows across his face; it makes it difficult to determine what he’s thinking. He’s all harsh lines at this angle, she notes. Makes him look older, like he’s aged years in the span of two but then again they all have. The bags under his eyes match her own, marking that perfect face like a perpetual bruise. 

“Rin,” he murmurs, lifting his gaze and never taking it off her own. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” His voice is low and husky, unexpectedly soft at her name.

She shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep.” Half a truth, but one all the same. This way he can’t call her a liar if he wanted to. Rin makes her way across the room, dragging a chair behind her so she’s sitting in front of his desk. She props her legs on his desk and stares back expectantly.

“Why aren’t you asleep?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” he parrots back, crossing his arms. She rolls her eyes and leans forward, eyeing the stack of papers on his desk. She sees itineraries, expense logs, and inventory sheets among the ones on the top. It’s too much paperwork for her taste so she moves it aside, leaving empty space on the table.

“What are you doing?”

Rin gets up and walks to a back shelf, the one she where she knew held a stash of sorghum wine. She grabs a bottle and two conveniently located cups on the top shelf before walking back, placing them down in front of him. 

At his disbelieving scoff, she shakes her head and leans back against his desk. 

“It’ll help us sleep. Assuming we don’t throw up first,” Rin says. She motions for him to start pouring and he obliges. He clinks his cup against hers as they toss it back at the same time; she relishes the burn at the back of her throat even as it doesn’t go down smooth. Nezha matches her, cup for cup, until her hand begins to shake and she can hear her heartbeat in her ears.

He takes the empty cup from her then, fingers brushing lightly against hers as he starts to pour the next round. It sends small tingles throughout her body, something she tries hard to ignore. It doesn’t mean anything and her body is just warmer because of the alcohol, not because she’s leaning slightly into his space when he meets her eyes.

“I think we should fuck,” she says without an ounce of shame. That was probably the wine talking, but she doesn’t mean it any less. At least she has the satisfaction of watching him choke right after he drinks the last cup. 

“You’re joking,” he finally manages, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. She remains silent, eyes locked on his. The ball is in his court now; she’s not repeating herself again. Something in his face changes when he realizes that she’s serious, eyes lingering on hers before traveling the length of her body, clad only in thin sleeping clothes.

She doesn’t know who moves first.

It’s hardly a proper kiss, to be honest. It’s more like a clash of teeth, an overwhelming rush, all devastation, no survivors. He kisses her, she kisses him; it doesn’t matter in the end because oh, she _feels_.

He pulls her into his lap and she doesn’t fight him. Lets herself move, lets herself be swept away, no lifeline. He’s looking at her, the dark of his pupils blown wide and open. There’s a kind of hunger in them that she can’t explain, like he can swallow her whole with just a look. She thinks that if she stares back any longer she might just let him.

This was it, wasn’t it? Get a man to look at you with so much desire that he’ll do anything for you, to make someone want you to the point where it becomes a need. 

She shifts on his lap, rolling her hips just so, enough that she can hear his groan and feel the way his hands palm her ass, squeezing once, twice. He leans in, close; she can smell the alcohol on his breath when he nuzzles the crook of her neck. It’s gentle, unexpected; she doesn’t know how to respond to it so she strokes the hard length of him through his pants instead, just to hear that strangled gasp of her name on his lips again. 

Rin can feel herself getting wet; scratch that, she’s sure she’s soaked now, the same way she got when she’d put her hand down her pants in the dark of her room back in Sinegard after a particularly stressful day, in the dead of the night when she was sure Niang and Venka were asleep. Nezha slips his hand under her shirt, searching; she clumsily undoes the tie of his pants with her hand as he trails his hands up to the valley of her breasts, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

She feels herself getting impatient, the way she always does. She tugs his pants down just far enough just so she can take his cock in her hand, properly, this time. He gasps into her neck, involuntarily bucking up into her palm. She can feel his hands start to work again, sliding off her pants to her knees. 

“Touch me,” she commands into his ear. She’s still not looking at him the way he’s not looking at her; she’s scared at what he’ll see, what she’ll see. A disaster in the place of a girl, a tragedy of a boy in her shadow.

Rin takes his hand and guides him to the apex of her thighs; Nezha seems to be in control again when he moves and cups her right where she wants him. He sinks a finger in, then two, knuckle deep, and this time she doesn’t care that he’s the one drawing sounds out of her this time. He grinds the palm of his hand into her and she feels her body instinctively respond, just there, there, _there—_

“Rin,” he snarls her name as he works her, free hand gripping the back of her thighs so hard she might have bruises later. Good, she thinks hazily. She wants none of that softness. This way she can recognize him better.

She shifts abruptly, breaking his ministrations as she takes him in her hand again, lifting her hips to meet him halfway. She feels the stretch, feels the soft burn, _feels_. Everything and not at all. She wants more, that greedy half of her, always wanting.

His name is torn from some primal part deep inside of her when he begins to rock up and into her. She grips his shoulder with her hand, fisting his shirt as she meets him with every thrust. Nezha’s mouth is at the hollow of her collarbone and she can feel his muttered curses against her skin. Rin isn’t even sure who’s in control now, or if there was any in the first place. Both of them taking, taking, taking because they never learned how to give. 

And after, when they’re both sated and wrecked, she’s the first one to climb off of him. Sweat has pooled in the valley between her breasts and her shirt clings stubbornly to her. Rin ignores the sudden emptiness when she stands up, gathering up her pants that have fallen around her ankles. She pulls them up and doesn’t bother to wipe the traces of him from her inner thighs. She’ll probably take a bath before going back to sleep. 

Nezha still has that half-dazed look when she peeks at him from her periphery. She clears her throat, once, twice, and stares at a spot two inches to the right of his face.

“Goodnight, Nezha,” she says. No more, no less. She can’t afford anything else.

Rin ignores the way his stare follows her all the way down the hall.

* * *

In some ways, Kitay hasn’t changed.

He’s still her best friend, her other half, her soulmate. He’s by her side when she’s back from city patrols, by her side when they make their daily rounds around the palace grounds. They still eat together in the kitchens; she doesn’t think she’ll ever trust the kitchen staff again so they’ve taken it upon themselves to cook for themselves. They still share a room, beds pushed to opposite corners so he’s the last thing she sees before going to sleep and the first when she wakes up.

But sometimes, when she’s pretending to not look at him and when he thinks she’s not looking, Rin will catch something at the edges of her vision.

She’d see shadows in the whites of his eyes, lingering far too long in the corners. She’d see the barest glimpses of a reproachful look whenever he first thought to deal with a problem was to burn it all down. He used to do it all the time whenever they had contrasting approaches to morality, but this time it feels different. Sharper, heavier, the weight of a shackle made concrete.

Rin knew she didn’t deserve his forgiveness.

She wants to hear him say it anyway. 

“I love and hate you in equal and opposite measures,” Kitay says in response. He pauses and she thinks that this is it, this is the killing blow. “So much that I don’t have a name for what I feel for you,” he admits. There’s a heavy, resigned breath, like he’s just dragged it up from his lungs. Kitay blows it out slowly, weighing his words along with her judgment.

“But even after everything, I’m still on your side, Rin,” he finishes quietly after what felt like an eternity. “I can’t help but stay by your side.” It goes without saying that this is his way of letting her know that she still had him despite the fact that he knew the lengths she would go for something. The lengths she’d already gone, the lengths that she would continue to go. She’ll never have his forgiveness, but this was as close as she would ever get. 

She should’ve felt relief at that. But instead, all she feels is guilt and shame and culpability that she’d forced his hand, forced his will, forced _everything_. Broken him apart until he only had his love for her holding him together at the seams. 

And by the look on his face, she knows that he feels it too.

How he looks at her like he still loves her, like he’s never stopped, like he doesn’t know how to stop.

* * *

The second time she fucks Nezha, it’s an impasse. 

Kitay had managed to remove Nezha’s gold bracelets with some equipment they’ve fished out of Sister Petra’s old laboratory the other day, and the change was near-instantaneous. The scars on his wrists smoothed over completely, and the bags under his eyes lightened until they were pale imitations of what came before. The biggest change; however, came from the way he moved. He still had that same old predatory grace, the way she remembered when they fought back to back a lifetime ago. 

He joins her on a patrol one night. Tells her that it was about time that he got out of the palace and out of the city. When they’re done making the rounds, she isn’t all too surprised when he grabs her hand and leads her downriver and into the forest. The moon is particularly bright; she doesn’t need to light a fire when he pulls her into a small clearing by the river.

Nezha sits down and pats the spot next to him on the grass. She obliges, kicking off her boots to dip her feet into the water, letting the moonlight turn her skin silver underneath the water. They sit in silence together for a while, side by side on the grass, looking up at the night sky. It’s peaceful here, in this bubble far outside the city, so much that Rin feels like breaking it.

“We should fight,” she says, flicking water at Nezha with her feet. The splash never lands; he simply waves his hand and redirects it to her, soaking her pants.

He laughs at her unamused face, the sound so familiar that it makes her heart clench. “Is that what we’re calling it now?” 

“No, like really,” Rin says, tilting her chin up at him. “Unless you’re scared.”

That gets his attention. He leans in close, studying her. She finds it completely unfair that the moonlight only serves to enhance his already ethereal features while it made her look washed out in comparison.

“Okay,” Nezha says finally. “Let’s fight. What are the terms?”

“Draw first blood or yield,” Rin says before pausing, thinking it over. “And no powers. Don’t want to destroy any more than we have to.”

Nezha shrugs before getting to his feet in one motion, brushing the grass off his pants. “Fine by me.”

She meets him in the middle of the clearing, drawing her sword the same time as he draws his. It feels good to feel this way again, the clash of metal, the rush of adrenaline flooding her veins. She’d worked hard over the last months, bulking up her left arm by sparring with the soldiers that she trained. She blocks Nezha’s right uppercut, pivoting before striking at his undefended left shoulder. He parries her blows, meeting her on equal footing. He’s nothing like the boy who tried to kill her on Speer; he’s all fluid grace now.

“Come on, Rin,” he taunts, smile feral in the moonlight. “Don’t tell me that this is all you’ve got.”

Her arm burns with exhaustion after a while. Her strikes might’ve been more precise than Nezha’s but she could never match his brute force; it took double the energy to block him. Her breaths come out in ragged pants and she doesn’t notice when he’s slowly edging her towards the treeline. 

Until, of course, it's too late and he disarms her, backing her up against a tree. Rin can feel the way her heart threatens to break through her ribs when Nezha brackets her legs with his and presses cold steel to her jugular. 

She swallows and his eyes track the movement before flickering back to hers. Sometimes she forgets how beautiful he really is, but when he’s this close it’s impossible to ignore. His body is pressed against hers and oh, was it wrong to be afraid and aroused at the same time? 

Nezha puts more pressure on the blade until she can feel it barely breaking skin, and then it’s enough to break her out of her daze. Her heart drops; she realizes that there’s no one out here that will come looking for her if he finished the job. She could probably attack him with fire but the river was _right there_ —

“Do it,” Rin says, staring Nezha right in the eyes. She’s never been scared of dying, only betrayal. She’s just sorry that she would leave Kitay behind. Now she’ll never be able to make anything up to him again; she regrets always eating the bigger half of the pork bun when she said that they were equal.

Nezha looks like she’d slapped him, mind finally reaching the same conclusion as hers. “Rin,” he says slowly, “you’re supposed to say that you yield.”

She blinks, feeling the terror slowly fade away. “Oh.”

Nezha drops his sword. It falls to the grass at his feet, forgotten. There’s shock and horror and pain written all over his face when he grabs her shoulders, jerking her forward. 

“Did you really think…” Nezha’s voice trails off, as broken as she feels. 

“I don’t know—” she starts haltingly. 

“I would never,” he responds vehemently, cutting her off. 

“You did last time,” she says dully in reply. It’s a low, low blow and she feels no satisfaction when he visibly flinches, grip loosening at her shoulders. 

“That's not fair, Rin. I never wanted to.” 

“But you still did, anyway.”

He’s silent at that and Rin lets her head fall back, staring up and beyond Nezha’s shattered expression. She takes a moment to catch her breath; her pulse is still racing, fueling the last bits of adrenaline surging through her body and flooding her with spent energy.

“I’m sorry, Rin—”

“Shut up,” she orders, ignoring the look of hurt that flashes over his face. She also hates that she’s the one that put it there, so she pulls him close and kisses him instead.

This time they’re more coordinated. She bites his bottom lip and he knots his fingers in her hair, slanting his mouth over hers, the act almost desperate in motion. Nezha shoves one leg in between hers and pulls at her shirt, untucking it from her belted pants. She tries to do the same to him but her hand fumbles once, twice, before she can get it undone and pushes it down.

Nezha lifts her off the ground and she wraps her legs around his waist. They don’t waste any more time talking when she takes his cock and guides it to her, already wet and wanting. She bites her lip at the initial stretch but Nezha jerks her chin up, mouth pressed to her ear, breath harsh and ragged.

“No one can hear you out here, Rin,” he pants before bottoming out, hands trembling from their position around her thighs.

“You talk too much,” she hisses back, left arm hooking around his neck to steady herself. “Now fuck me.”

If there’s anything she’s learned over the months, it’s that Nezha gives as good as he gets. Rin barely registers the way the rough tree bark presses through her leathers when he rocks into her. She loses herself as every thrust sends her higher and higher before she brings her hand down between them and rubs at herself.

Rin bites down on her shoulder when she comes, getting a mouthful of cotton in the process. Her legs are still shaking when he groans into her hair, spilling himself inside her. Her head rests limply on Nezha’s chest; she lets the rhythm of his heartbeat lull her back down to earth. Nezha touches his forehead to hers before he pulls out and lowers her back down.

She doesn't know what it means when he brushes the hair away from her face, looking at her like he’s searching for something. She doesn’t know what it means when he pulls her in and kisses her, hands gentle on her shoulders. 

She doesn’t know if she ever wants to find out so she closes her eyes instead.

* * *

The months become routine.

She gets up at sunrise with Kitay. She eats breakfast with Kitay. She goes on a morning patrol around Arlong. She doesn’t think about Nezha. She does a patrol of the palace. She trains soldiers. She trains with Nezha. She listens in to meetings. She eats lunch with Kitay. She doesn’t think about Nezha. She trains soldiers some more. She visits Kitay in the workshops. She inspects weaponry. She visits Kitay in the laboratory. She looks over reports regarding the rest of the country. She goes over inventory with Kitay. She patrols some more. She eats dinner with Kitay. She writes in her journal. She takes a bath. She talks to Kitay. She doesn’t think about Nezha. She flips her coin. 

She reminds herself that she is content, but not complacent. 

She walks the halls at night when she cannot sleep.

She finds herself in front of a door that could never stay locked to her.

* * *

The third, fourth, seventh time, it’s a habit. But after, _after_ , when she’s lost count and the nights become a blur, it becomes personal.

They’re in his bed, for once. She’s fucked him on every surface in his room except the bed. She’s stayed away from it for a reason; it’s too much. It felt like she wouldn’t have the higher ground there, like the lines she’d drawn for herself would blur until she didn’t know wrong from right.

Nezha presses her into his mattress, proving her assumption correct. His weight is unevenly distributed on the lower half of her body; she can feel her legs slowly going numb from the prolonged contact.

That’s not the part that she’s worried about, however. He has his chin propped up with his arms on her stomach, staring at her with some kind of quiet intensity that she recognizes. It’s the same one he got right before a fight, jawline hard and tight, eyes dark and intent. 

Nezha holds her gaze as he slowly unbuttons her shirt, hands working quickly as her heartbeat begins to skyrocket. When she’s bare, he runs his fingers up her ribs before trailing up to her breasts, touch feather-light and leaving her wanting more. 

“You’re shaking,” he murmurs as he kisses the spot right in the middle of Altan’s handprint, directly above her heart. 

“It’s the middle of winter,” she snaps at him before he leans up and tugs off his shirt over his head. His laugh is a low, rich thing when he shifts and peels her pants down her thighs and off. 

“You have a fire burning inside of you,” he says before hooking his arms behind her knees.

Rin shifts her legs, body drunk with anticipation but stills when Nezha lowers his mouth to her cunt. He catches her thighs when she jerks her legs reflexively, alarm bells going off in her head.

Without another word, his mouth is on her. Her mind whites out when Nezha eats her out like he’s a man starved, tongue working mercilessly against her folds. It doesn’t take long until she comes on his mouth, voice broken and shaky when it catches on the lump in her throat. 

She is dimly aware that Nezha is taking off his pants before he’s crawling right back to her. Rin turns her head when he kisses the hollow of her collarbone. Her heart pounding through her veins and Rin can’t believe how stupid she is for letting her guard down because in the end it’s just supposed to be just sex and not whatever this thing has evolved into. He touches her waist lightly and she can feel his cock resting hard and heavy against the inside of her thighs. 

“Rin,” Nezha says from somewhere up and above her. “What do you want?”

Rin closes her eyes. It was easier when she looked past him or not at all. She did this so she didn't have to put emotions to a face. She liked it better when he had his face buried in her neck, teeth pressed to the pulse point of her throat. 

“Look at me, Rin,” he repeats until she cracks her eyes open. He shifts closer until the head of his cock is pressing against her slit. “What do you want?”

Rin bares her teeth, impatience getting the better of her. “I want you to fuck me.” She tries to angle her hips for more friction, but Nezha holds her down. There is a tiny flicker of anger in her chest when he does because he had no right to do whatever he was doing to her. 

“Let’s try that again,” he says. “What do you need?”

Rin needs a lot of things. She needs Kitay to be okay. She needs Nikan to hold itself together. She needs Hesperia to burn. She needs Altan to go away. The list goes on. 

But for her? For _herself_?

“I don’t know.” Her voice is as hollow as it sounds but it’s the truth. The entire pitiful thing. “I don’t know what I need. I don’t know why I end up at your door—” her breath hitches; the sound creates a rattle she can feel deep down in her lungs — “I just need to feel something, anything, anything at all—” _even if it breaks me in the end_.

They’re a little more than animals when he finally pushes into her. She claws her nails down his back, breaking skin, drawing blood. He sets a brutal pace, driving, punishing, hips snapping against hers. He doesn’t kiss her this time; he lets his mouth mark bruises along her throat. 

The things they do to ruin each other. The countless things they will continue to do. 

She thinks she understands it now: the burn of desire, the want that bleeds into a need. It feels like the first time again, both of them taking, taking, taking. 

She takes until she goes over the edge, legs shuddering against his. He follows several heartbeats later, hands clenching her hips before going slack. Rin takes a few moments to compose herself before she gets up and searches for her clothes. 

Nezha grabs her arm right before she can shrug on her shirt. She can see the question in his eyes before he can ask; she’s already shaking her head when she stumbles away from him, desperate to put distance between them. 

“I broke Kitay,” Rin says, pulling on her shirt with jerky, uneven motions. She swallows hard before the guilt could crawl up her throat. “And I’ll break you too, if it ever came down to it.”

Nezha studies her as she reaches for her pants, hopping awkwardly on one foot before she pulls them on. Something tells her that they’re not done here, like this was just the calm before the storm, waiting for the lightning strike. All the more reason for her to leave.

“Tell me you don’t need me and I won’t ask again,” Nezha whispers, stopping her right in her tracks. “I mean it, Rin.” 

She didn’t break the cycle on that day on Speer, and she wasn’t going to start now. Rin raises her eyes, meeting his gaze. The cards are all on the table now and she knows that they’ve never been good at settling for second place. They’ve always played for first.

“I’m not who I was before,” she says. _I’m something much worse_.

“I know,” Nezha says. “Neither am I.”

He reaches his hand out to her, palm up, fingers outstretched.

She takes it.

* * *

Between the three of them, they’ve always known that this day would come. Hesperia would come for them, the need for due diligence long gone. They would come and conquer what had so carelessly slipped their grasps a decade before. 

Everything had a price.

She was always more than willing to pay.

The report of the first dirigible sighting lies on the table in the war room at Arlong. Kitay shoots her a pleading look, already guessing the thoughts that are running through her head. Nezha drinks more sorghum wine straight from the bottle, tapping a map of the Nikara Republic.

“Well, we tried our best,” he says. “We fixed things. If it comes down to it, we can always even the odds.”

Rin shrugs, hearing the Phoenix’s laugh in the background of her mind. She thinks of the words carved in Old Nikara on the Red Cliffs. Perhaps it was time to find out which meaning was correct.

“Nothing lasts, but maybe we will.”


End file.
